Have people really forgotten what 'Halloween' means??? - Just to remind you :
Somewhere around 800 A.D. the Christian church declared November 1st as All Saints' Day to honour all the Saints who did not have a special day of their own. November was chosen also as the traditional end of harvest. The mass said on All Saints' Day was known as All Hallow Mass. The evening before, October 31st therefore became known as All Hallow Eve. Over time the name has been shortened to Halloween.
When people stop the nonsense of Halloween I will cheer - for example - I just about understand the making of Pumpkin lanterns - they were made to light the way home from the last harvests (but without the silly faces). Who was it that decided ghosts and ghouls would 'have a party' on the night before All Saints Day - did the Mass banish them for the rest of the year and this was their only chance to have fun?? - and what on earth has 'trick or treat' got to do with celebrating the Eve of All Saints Day??
Rant over!
6 comments:
Hi Anna, Just to wind you up even further I'm going to add a friendly "ah... but..." many, if not most, of the Christian festivals were placed directly on top of existing pre-christian festivals in order to try and wipe them out. All saints day used to be on May 13th until Pope Gregory IV moved it to Nov 1st to coincide with the Celtic Samhain festival on 31st October - this was a "festival of the dead".
The little rant about Halloween is most informative.Rant on!!!
Ha! I am with you sista! I flippin' well hate it as well. Up here in Scotland it used to be based on kids visiting houses performing little plays, reciting ditties etc and goes back to pre-Christian times (probably Celtic Samhain as 1st Nov was the Celtic new year). It is called A'Guisin' and the lanterns were made of turnips as pumpkins are relatively new here.
I really dislike what it has become over recent years and absolutely hate the modern commercialisation of it.
As an Aussie, I've never really understood Halloween. For us Oct 31st comes and goes generally without noticing and the commercialised hype is fairly minimal.
For us in Wales it always was Dydd Calan Gaeaf, which means winter's eve, and they would have a Mari Lloyd - which is a forse's skull and go to the naughtiest person in the village to play tricks on them, the one with the biggest scandal. Realatively died out now. I hate what it has turned into - I love giving the kidies a treat but hen you get the big thugs with their hand out and the worry about what they will do to your car i you say no!
In Yorkshire back in the 1960's we called it mischievous night and would do naughty things like knocking on the neighbours door and running off. We didn't expect anything except a telling off :)
We did celebrate Guy Fawkes night with a huge bonfire, onto which we put a full sized stuffed effigy of Guy, and then we cheered whilst he burned. Hmmmm
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